Brother Love's Salvation Show

Oliver

For just this one night, I had agreed to cut Trevor a break. I had pulled some strings and gotten Rose to agree to get Anna out of the house in whatever means necessary. Rose had tried to get Lya in on the deal for a night out, but I wasn’t about to let her out of my sight, especially off of pack territory when we knew there were people after her. It didn’t exactly sit well with me to encourage my mate’s best friend and the Beta’s daughter off territory as is, but Trevor refused to set foot on our land until she was gone. I couldn’t keep them separated forever, but I could allow him one night.

Trevor’s head popped up when we walked into the kitchen, eyes locked on my mate. “Do you still hate me?”

I didn’t miss Lya’s pained expression. Her anger at him had been justified, and if she could overlook it, she was a better person than me. The only thing that had kept Trevor in my good graces was a lifetime of friendship, and he came clean.

“No,” she said quietly. “Just don’t do that again.”

“I’ll have an entire pack after me if I do,” he chuckled. He sat a beer in front of Lya. “Peace offering?”

Lya smiled up at him before glancing around the room. I breathed a sigh of relief. It’d be difficult to have a beta the Luna disapproved of.

Her eyes fell on Thom, a bit of color rising to her cheeks. He shot her a wink, and if he hadn’t already told me the pretenses of their initial run in, I would have been jealous that he could bring color to her cheeks with just a look. “Nice to see you with clothes on, Lya,” he chuckled.

She glanced down at her beer. “It would’ve been nice if someone had told me my room had been moved,” she muttered. “What are you doing here, anyway? Don’t you have a wife that’s about to have your kid?”

Thom’s laughter roared through the kitchen. “I like you. You know, you’re the first person who has asked about Maggie since I got here. But she’ll get here in a couple days. With the possibility of it being a werewolf pup, we wanted to make sure we were at a hospital that could handle it if something went wrong.”

“Oh, so nothing to do with wanting to see your brother?” I asked with mock hurt.

Thom glanced up at me. “No, but the excuse to make sure you’re treating your kidnapping victim well did cross my mind.”

“She’s not being held here against her will,” I grumbled, my arm instinctually wrapping around her.

Thom cocked an eyebrow at me. “Is that so?”

He placed plates in front of us, and I reveled in how naturally and easily the banter continued over dinner. The feeling of being surrounded by family for the first time in a long time was comforting, and soothed the pang of loneliness I was so familiar with. Losing my mom and dad had gotten easier to deal with, but I never missed them less. My brother disappearing immediately after made it all the more difficult to deal with, and even my best friend hadn’t stuck around by my side, finding an excuse to leave for longer and longer stretches each time he came back.

I owed Lya for more than just being my other half. When she was brought to the pack, she unknowingly dragged my family back with her.

Trevor had quickly ushered us out of the kitchen as soon as dinner was over, worried Anna would show up at any moment. He led us to the farthest point from the entrance to the house that Anna would have absolutely no reason to go - the den off the alpha wing.

“Can you seriously not cope with just seeing her?” Lya sighed. “I mean, I can deal with you, and you very nearly had me killed.”

“It’s not that simple, Lya,” he said tersely.

I just rolled my eyes. “It’s extremely simple. Trevor just doesn’t want Anna to find out that they are mates.” Hurt flashed across Trevor’s face, but I didn’t care so much anymore. “Trevor has been a very good liar for the past six years, and he doesn’t want to actually own up to it yet.”

“Oh, like you’re one to talk,” Trevor snapped at me, sending a very pointed look Lya’s way.

I glanced over at Thom, but he didn’t look the least bit surprised. I would not have been shocked if he was in on the whole ordeal. Lya, however, was very confused.

“Trevor left six years ago,” I said, filling her in. “He told everyone it was to find his mate, which was believable. He used to come back regularly. Then at Anna’s eighteenth birthday four years ago, he was here for ten minutes, then left. He only came back once in those four years. I believed him for a while, that he wanted to find his mate, but after he accepted the beta position, said he wanted to start a life with Anna, and then backed out, I started putting together the dots. He wanted revenge for the death of his parents, and if he actually found his mate, he wouldn’t have an excuse to leave and do that. It just took me a long time to figure out why he would agree to come back, then not.”

Trevor looked down at his beer. “It wasn’t a good plan, but at least it was a plan.”

“A good plan would have been being up front with your Alpha,” I shot back.

“Well, Alpha, I’m going to bed. You have fun with your own secrets.”

We all watched as he stormed out of the room. I expected Lya to ask for clarification, but she kept quiet. It surprised me a bit when she got up to follow him, but she was ever the Luna already.

“You know, if you’re going to be angry at him, you also need to be angry at me,” Thom said. “I’m the one that told him if he was going to pursue the hunters behind your back, he needed to stay away from the pack, make sure none of it got back home, and her blood would be on his hands if any harm came to his mate.”

I looked over at him, but he didn’t make eye contact. “He almost brought harm to my mate.”

“But he didn’t,” he pointed out. “And would you really be this angry with him if it was just some rogue she-wolf caught in the crossfire?”

That comment gave me pause. A good alpha would have been just as angry either way, but I truly didn’t know if I would have been. I certainly didn’t want to know, either. I had to wonder if Lya ever would have stumbled into my life if it weren’t for Trevor.

“Besides,” Thom added, “I was keeping an eye on him. He never actually did anything to draw hunters in. He just turned that town into a hub for rogues. It would’ve taken a few more years or so for it to even come up on the hunters’ radar.”

“Then why are there hunters sniffing around that town now?” I asked.

Thom shook his head. “You have your mate to thank for that. They have been tracking the lost Wulver for years now.”

The confirmation of what we had been thinking felt like a punch to the stomach. Lya wasn’t safe, and I had to wonder if she ever would be. I was going to have to start thinking about how much danger I was bringing to the pack by harboring her sooner rather than later.

“You know, the entire pack likes her,” Thom continued, as if he had read my thoughts. We hadn’t been able to mindlink in a long time, but we were still brothers. “They’ll help protect their Luna.”

“And who have you been talking to? I thought you had severed ties with the pack.”

“The pack, yes,” he agreed. “But not my friends. Everyone’s hoping your public appearance with her at the last full moon means she’s your mate, and you haven’t exactly done a good job of hiding your mark.”

“I don’t want to mark her until she actually knows what it means,” I confessed.

Thom chuckled. “I figured. You two weren’t all over each other the way mated couples are.” He stood up, heading for the door. “I really can’t believe you guys. I’d give anything to have my mate.”

I sat in the den, alone with my thoughts. Thom had always had a way of presenting uncomfortable truths, and right now, I resented him for it. He was always right, too. He really should have been alpha, not me.